Steelflower was kind of a rollercoaster for me.

The world-building was nice, and I like that it avoided both the elves/orcs/humans/hobbits and fantasy-china/fantasy-italy/etc. tropes - I particularly enjoy the habit the author has of reconstructing words from their components (e.g. telescope => farseer).

I got really annoyed with the main character's level of melodrama and self-victimization around halfway in - I get that it was probably intentional, but I still found it aggravating. Overall I do enjoy that the characters are complex and that the protagonist isn't a perfect chosen one.

I don't feel like there was a whole lot of conclusion at the end, it kind of just segues into the next book without anything really being resolved. …so I immediately started the next book. 🙂